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Sam stumbles into the room, half dragging, half carrying Steve's big dumb buff self. Sam assumes Barnes has the sense to follow. The chink chink of the metal plates on Barnes's arm shift. It sounds close. Sam is trying to deposit Steve on the nearest bed when he hears the door shut. He looks up and sees Bucky fumbling with the door card....Whatever. The front desk gave them two.Not for the first time, Sam wonders just how much autonomy Barnes still has. Their interactions so far hadn’t indicated much (not that that had even been at the forefront of Sam's mind at the time anyway). But the files Hydra had, referred to Barnes in a way reminiscent of a particularly dense dog, or, at worst, an inanimate object. So honestly, Sam couldn't tell if most of what Barnes did was some kind of trauma response or an actual thought-out decision. Really, with what had been done to him, Sam counted it miraculous he wasn't a vegetable.Sam continues the struggle of sticking Steve onto the bed. He has no way of telling what kind of substance Steve was hit with. That, coupled with Steve’s previous head injury, is a recipe for disaster. Steve's head lolls forward, hitting Sam in his wounded chest. His vision whites out. He blinks. He's on his knees on the squishy carpet. He's dropped Steve, and Steve has slid off the bed and into the floor.
Good Lord.
Steve shoots up, knocking the top of his head on the bed frame as he goes. He swings an arm out with none of his usual grace or coordination, catching Sam in the face. Sam groans and swallows around the nausea. Right in the road rash. “Steve. Steve, hey!” Sam tries. Steve is weak, but Sam is weaker. His shoulder spreads fire through his arm as they grapple pitifully in the dingy light of the motel. Barnes’s mild stare burns from across the room. Steve goes down after a moment, suddenly, eyes rolling in a brief faint. His eyes are wild, pupils blown, and his lips move soundlessly, bloody. He sees something that is not there. There is no other sound except for his terrified panting and Sam's own heaving breaths. Barnes starts towards them, but a rush of panic knots itself around Sam’s throat. He turns, snaps, “Sit!”Barnes sits. It's not fair and it's not nice, but Sam can't manage them both if Barnes starts swinging too. It's unclear whether he fully understands the situation they're in, and Sam can't afford a misunderstanding right now.Sam sits down heavily, opposite Steve, his back against the sticky wall. He studies Steve's colorless face for a moment, watches him mumble and roll his head back. It hits the wall with a dull thud. Finally, Steve draws his knees up, drops his head down. All is still. The shadow that drapes across the room shifts. Sam looks towards the lamp. Barnes sits still and rigid on the vinyl covered recliner in the corner. His head is tilted down, eyes like two glittering cabochons in his impassive face. His brow is smooth and unfurrowed. He does not blink. Sam looks away.The scrape across his collarbone aches and stings. His shoulder socket throbs and pulses in tandem with his heartbeat. The graze across his chest needs to be stitched. If he does it now, it will be one of the worst stitch jobs he's ever done. There is no adequate light, and he is so shaky. He's too shaky, he is too tired.But it doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be done.That was the army. That was an army saying, Sam thinks. And if they didn't mean it to apply to Sam's particular case, well. They should have added a disclaimer.He heaves himself up, light headed, carefully avoiding stepping on Steve in the narrow hallway. Steve doesn't react, his head still tilted to the side, face turned partially to the shadows. A lone tear makes its way down his flushed face. Sam passes him and opens the bathroom door, flicking on the light. It falters and comes on with a hearty buzz. Sam stares at his own haggard face in the mirror. He can hear his heart beating in his ears, the buzzing of the bathroom light, the soft exhales in the hall as Steve sobs. Sam rifles through the cabinets under the sink and behind the mirror, hoping desperately for a first aid kit. Nothing. There’s nothing but cobwebs and mouse droppings. He curses under his breath and braces his hands on the grimy counter. He ducks his head, eyes burning. There’s a faint creak of vinyl, a thud of cabinets opening and closing. A beat, and Barnes is standing in the doorway.Barnes is tall, maybe an inch shorter than Steve. He's built like Steve. Sam knows this. Before, the inch or so he had on Sam seemed inconsequential. Suddenly, it seemed big in this tiny bathroom with the buzzing light. In this small, cramped space where Steve sits quietly crying in the hall. Barnes’s face is silent and empty. Sam sucks in a breath and it burns, because it all seems big right now.Steve is here but isn't, and Barnes is finally here but he isn't. Sam is here. Sam is here, and he is no super soldier. He can't engage in hand to hand with the Winter Soldier on a good day. This is not a good day. Sam is exhausted, and Steve is down with something meant for Barnes. It really is just him. Just Sam, and the fact that he’s so tired he’s past the point of yawning, he’s melting. Just Sam, with his shaking hands and the jagged wound in his chest that feels wide enough to open and swallow them all whole.Breathe in.Breathe out.Sam can’t suppress a flinch as Barnes moves, extending his metal arm. Sam’s vision grays out for a moment. He swallows and looks down, blinking watery eyes. Barnes sets a dusty first aid kit down gently on the counter next to Sam. Sam stares.If Barnes takes a notion to take Steve and Sam out right now, he can. But Sam has to believe that he won't. If Barnes’s first instinct, stripped down to this after seventy years of torture, is still to help- He won’t.Sam picks up the first aid kit.